Contents

On August 21, 2014 - An individual Member of HOT begins monitoring the news regarding hemorragic fever cases in Djera area, DRC, and editing OSM database.

On August 24th, Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (meeting with HOT) express their actual need of getting more accurate geographic data for the area. Ebola virus is detected and outbreak is officially announced by authorities.

3 tasks were immediately set up for the highest priority area on the HOT Tasking Manager and completed by contributors within a short time.

On September 1st OCHA (together with WFP - Logistics Cluster) formally requests HOT to activate in order to help facing logistical issues and response coordination.

Bing Imagery was not available in various areas where epidemy suspected cases were reported. The MapGive project supported this activation providing some additional high-resolution imagery to cover the gaps.

The last Ebola-positive case was detected on October 4th, 2014. The end of the outbreak is expected to be officially announced on November 15th.

Map and Data Services

About OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap offers an online map (and spatial database) which is updated by the minute. Various online maps are based on OpenStreetMap including Navigation tools such as OSRM.
Tools and services allow data extracts for GIS specialists, Routable Garmin GPS data, Smartphone GPS navigation, and other device-compatible downloads. With an internet connection, regular syncing is possible with open access to the community contributed data as it comes in, with OpenStreetMap's bulk data downloads ideal for use offline. In addition, maps can also be printed to paper.

Browse the Activation Area to get a feel for the data that is currently available. Different map styles including an Humanitarian style can be selected on the right side, and some data may not render (appear) on the map, but could be exported from the underlying database (See export section below).

This script can be rerun at any time to obtain up-to-date extracts of OSM

Paper Maps

The Logistics Cluster (UN World Food Programme) currently provides printable maps for some affected places in the area using OSM base map. To download a map, follow the link, right click on the picture and then "Save As...":

About This Humanitarian Activation

About HOT

To learn more about the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), explore more of our wiki-pages (root: HOT) or our website hotosm.org. We are a global community of mostly volunteers, we are also a US Nonprofit able to contract with organizations (email info at hotosm.org to contact our staff), we are also a 501-c-3 charitable organization.

How You Can Contribute

Edit the Map

You can contribute to the response via the internet by tracing buildings, roads, waterways, etc. To react rapidly to support humanitarians deploying, we need a lot of contributors for remote editing. Visit LearnOSM.org to get started.

More experienced OSM contributors are invited to read guidelines on Highway Tag and revise the classification of roads. You can also assure the quality of the mapping, validating the Task manager tasks or using the various OSM Quality control tools.

Humanitarian Field teams and local people knowledge is also essential. Complete the map by adding name of roads or various infrastructures. You can edit the map using Small devices. Online or Offline applications are available.

Add a Note or report an Error using the Notes feature on the Online Map. OSM contributors will edit the map from your comments.

Mapping Priority

Please choose from highest priority first

For experienced mappers, information on validating the tasks can be found here.